System, method, and recording medium for workforce performance management

ABSTRACT

A break recommendation method, system, and non-transitory computer readable medium, include a cognitive state tracking circuit configured to track a cognitive state of a user viewing a document, a document identification and difficulty measuring circuit configured to identify a document type, a deviation detecting circuit configured to detect a deviation between a current cognitive state of the user and a past cognitive state of the user during a predetermined amount of time for the document type; and a recommending circuit configured to recommend that the user stop viewing the document for a predetermined amount of time based on the deviation being greater than a predetermined threshold value.

BACKGROUND

The present invention relates generally to a break recommendationsystem, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a breakrecommendation system for improving workforce performance by way ofrecommending a break or vacation for a user based on a deviation of ameasurement of the user's eye gaze, emotional expression, and facialexpression recorded while working on a document from a measurement for asimilar document.

Conventionally, workforce performance optimization techniques haveconsidered selecting and onboarding employees, studying and optimizingemployees' daily performances, improving employees longevity inorganizations and minimizing employee churn risks by, for example, humanresources analyzing the employees' hours versus the employees'performance In other words, conventional techniques attempt to assess acognitive state of the user.

In an unrelated art to workforce performance, cognitive tools such aseye gaze movement and facial/emotional state detection and tracking havebeen increasingly utilized.

However, there is a technical problem in the conventional techniques inthat the conventional techniques are incapable of adaptively monitoringa cognitive state of the user.

SUMMARY

In view of the technical problem, the inventors have considered anon-abstract improvement to a computer technology via a technicalsolution to the technical problem in which a system can recommend shortor long breaks from work to employees by measuring and/or monitoring ona continuous/frequent basis a cognitive state of employees working oncomputers, mobiles, digital devices, or the like, with cameras, whilethey work on their devices, using eye gaze tracking and facial/emotionalexpression tracking, and suggest that the employee take short breaks(e.g., a few minutes every hour) and/or long holidays/vacation (e.g., afew days every year) in the event of significant-enough fall of eye gazemovement smoothness and/or facial/emotional ease from the usual.

In an exemplary embodiment, the present invention can provide a breakrecommendation system, including a cognitive state tracking circuitconfigured to track a cognitive state of a user viewing a document, adocument identification and difficulty measuring circuit configured toidentify a document type, a deviation detecting circuit configured todetect a deviation between a current cognitive state of the user and apast cognitive state of the user during a predetermined amount of timefor the document type; and a recommending circuit configured torecommend that the user stop viewing the document for a predeterminedamount of time based on the deviation being greater than a predeterminedthreshold value.

Further, in another exemplary embodiment, the present invention canprovide a break recommendation method, including tracking a cognitivestate of a user viewing a document, identifying a document type of thedocument, detecting a deviation between a current cognitive state of theuser and a past cognitive state of the user during a predeterminedamount of time for the document type, and recommending that the userstop working on the document for a predetermined amount of time based onthe deviation being greater than a predetermined threshold value.

Even further, in another exemplary embodiment, the present invention canprovide a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium recording abreak recommendation program, the program causing a computer to perform:tracking a cognitive state of a user viewing a document, identifying adocument type of the document, detecting a deviation between a currentcognitive state of the user and a past cognitive state of the userduring a predetermined amount of time, and recommending that the userstop viewing the document for a predetermined amount of time based onthe deviation being greater than a predetermined threshold value.

There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, an embodiment of theinvention in order that the detailed description thereof herein may bebetter understood, and in order that the present contribution to the artmay be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional exemplaryembodiments of the invention that will be described below and which willform the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.

It is to be understood that the invention is not limited in itsapplication to the details of construction and to the arrangements ofthe components set forth in the following description or illustrated inthe drawings. The invention is capable of embodiments in addition tothose described and of being practiced and carried out in various ways.Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminologyemployed herein, as well as the abstract, are for the purpose ofdescription and should not be regarded as limiting.

As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conceptionupon which this disclosure is based may readily be utilized as a basisfor the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carryingout the several purposes of the present invention. It is important,therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalentconstructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope ofthe present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The exemplary aspects of the invention will be better understood fromthe following detailed description of the exemplary embodiments of theinvention with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 exemplarily shows a block diagram illustrating a configuration ofa break recommendation system 100.

FIG. 2 exemplarily shows a high level flow chart for a breakrecommendation method 200.

FIG. 3 exemplarily shows an exemplary flow of a recommendation to anemployee as facilitated by the break recommendation system 100.

FIG. 4 depicts a cloud computing node 10 according to an exemplaryembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 depicts a cloud computing environment 50 according to anotherexemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 depicts abstraction model layers according to an exemplaryembodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

The invention will now be described with reference to FIGS. 1-6, inwhich like reference numerals refer to like parts throughout. It isemphasized that, according to common practice, the various features ofthe drawing are not necessarily to scale. On the contrary, thedimensions of the various features can be arbitrarily expanded orreduced for clarity. Exemplary embodiments are provided below forillustration purposes and do not limit the claims.

With reference now to FIG. 1, the break recommendation system 100includes a document identification and difficulty measuring circuit 101,a cognitive state tracking circuit 102, a deviation detection circuit103, and a recommending circuit 104. The break recommendation system 100includes a processor 180 and a memory 190, with the memory 190 storinginstructions to cause the processor 180 to execute each circuit of breakrecommendation system 100. The processor and memory may be physicalhardware components, or a combination of hardware and softwarecomponents.

Although the break recommendation system 100 includes various circuits,it should be noted that the break recommendation system can includemodules in which the memory 190 stores instructions to cause theprocessor 180 to execute each module of break recommendation system 100.

Also, each circuit can be a stand-alone device, unit, module, etc. thatcan be interconnected to cooperatively produce a transformation to aresult.

With the use of these various circuits, the break recommendation system100 may act in a more sophisticated and useful fashion, and in acognitive manner while giving the impression of mental abilities andprocesses related to knowledge, attention, memory, judgment andevaluation, reasoning, and advanced computation. That is, a system issaid to be “cognitive” if it possesses macro-scaleproperties—perception, goal-oriented behavior, learning/memory andaction—that characterize systems (i.e., humans) that all agree arecognitive.

Cognitive states are defined as functions of measures of a user's totalbehavior collected over some period of time from at least one personalinformation collector (e.g., including musculoskeletal gestures, speechgestures, eye movements, internal physiological changes, measured byimaging circuits, microphones, physiological and kinematic sensors in ahigh dimensional measurement space, etc.) within a lower dimensionalfeature space. In one exemplary embodiment, certain feature extractiontechniques are used for identifying certain cognitive and emotionaltraits. Specifically, the reduction of a set of behavioral measures oversome period of time to a set of feature nodes and vectors, correspondingto the behavioral measures' representations in the lower dimensionalfeature space, is used to identify the emergence of a certain cognitivestate(s) over that period of time. One or more exemplary embodiments usecertain feature extraction techniques for identifying certain cognitivestates. The relationship of one feature node to other similar nodesthrough edges in a graph corresponds to the temporal order oftransitions from one set of measures and the feature nodes and vectorsto another. Some connected subgraphs of the feature nodes are hereinalso defined as a “cognitive state”. The present application alsodescribes the analysis, categorization, and identification of thesecognitive states further feature analysis of subgraphs, includingdimensionality reduction of the subgraphs, for example graphicalanalysis, which extracts topological features and categorizes theresultant subgraph and its associated feature nodes and edges within asubgraph feature space.

Although as shown in FIGS. 4-6 and as described later, the computersystem/server 12 is exemplarily shown in cloud computing node 10 as ageneral-purpose computing circuit which may execute in a layer the breakrecommendation system 100 (FIG. 6), it is noted that the presentinvention can be implemented outside of the cloud environment.

Turning back to FIG. 1 and the break recommendation system 100, thedocument identification and difficulty measuring circuit 101 identifiesa document type (e.g., text document, software program written using aprogramming language, etc.) and for each page within the document,measures the conceptual difficulty (i.e., document difficulty) of thepage. The document difficulty of a text document can be objectivelymeasured with, for example, Natural Language Processing (NLP) propertiessuch as text readability, semantic difficulty, presence of sarcasm andso on. For other document types (e.g., non-textual such assoftware-based or programming), a difficulty level is set from eitherprior policies or external tools/techniques.

For example, the subject difficulty of the document can be measuredusing a Flesch readability score which uses the sentence length (e.g.,number of words per sentence) and the number of syllables per word withan equation to calculate the reading ease. Texts with a very high Fleschreading Ease score (e.g., about 100) are very easy to read, have shortsentences, and no words of more than two syllables. That is, eachemployee could be required to take a test adapted to be similar to aFlesch-Kincaid grade level test which scores the employees readabilitybased on other employees to objectively rank the document difficulty fora particular employee.

Even further, a manager (supervisor) can set a document difficulty to bethe same for all employees. Or, a manager (supervisor) can set anexpected document difficulty for each page of a document. In thismanner, the document difficulty is an objectively measured variable thatcan be measured or set for each page of each document.

The cognitive state tracking circuit 102 tracks a cognitive state of theemployee (e.g., a user) as the employee is working on (i.e., viewing)the document. For example, the cognitive state tracking circuit 102includes a gaze tracking circuit 102A and an emotional and facialexpression tracking circuit 102B.

The eye tracking circuit 102A tracks the employee's eye gaze movementover time, as the employee works with the document on the digitaldevice. That is, the eye tracking circuit 102A monitors the eye gazemovement of an employee as they read document(s) of various types. Also,the eye tracking circuit 102A learns an eye gaze profile of a givenemployee with respect to a given document type and objective difficultylevel of the document, for short time window slots (such as 10-minuteslots) and longer time window slots (such as 5-day slots) to store inthe cognitive state database 130 to be compared to as described later.For example, the eye tracking circuit 102A can measure the employee'scognitive state by tracking, for example, eye movement smoothnessmeasured in terms of average fixations, rate and average length ofregressions, etc.

The emotional and facial expression tracking circuit 102B monitors afacial/emotional expression of an employee as they read document(s) ofvarious types. Also, the emotional and facial expression trackingcircuit 102B learns emotional/facial ease profile of a given employeewith respect to a given document type and objective difficulty level ofthe document, for short time window slots (such as ten-minute slots) andlonger time window slots (such as five-day slots) to store in thecognitive state database 130 to be compared to as described later. Forexample, the emotional and facial expression tracking circuit 102B canmeasure a cognitive state of the employee based on the employee facialexpressions indicating attentiveness to the document, the employeeyawning indicating fatigue, or the like.

The gaze tracking circuit 102A and the emotional and facial expressiontracking circuit 102B track the cognitive state of the employee inreal-time as well as store the tracked cognitive state over periods oftimes for a given document (i.e., according to the document anddifficulty of the document) in the cognitive state database 130.

That is, the cognitive state database 130 includes learned data for theemployee's usual eye gaze smoothness and facial/emotional ease when theemployee is working on documents, and benchmarks that with respect tothe difficulty of text. The learned data is bootstrapped over apredetermined period of time (i.e., potentially in a supervised setting,but extensible to an unsupervised model also) for different slidingwindow sizes (i.e., short windows such as ten-minute windows with aone-minute slide and longer windows such as five-day window with aone-day slide. Accordingly, the cognitive state database 130 includescognitive state profiles created for each employee for eye gazesmoothness and facial/emotional ease with respect to document type anddifficulty level for the deviation detecting circuit 103 to compare thecurrent cognitive state to the profile.

The deviation detecting circuit 103 compares a current cognitive stateof the employee as measured by the cognitive state tracking circuit 102with the stored profiles for the predetermined amount of time of theemployees cognitive state in the cognitive state database 130 to detecta deviation between the current cognitive state and the cognitive stateprofile so as to determine whether the employee may require a shortbreak, a long-break, or the like. In other words, the deviationdetection circuit 102 compares the characteristic parameters of eachrecently-completed window to a few windows prior.

The recommending circuit 104 sends a recommendation to the employee forthe employee to take a break based on a size of the deviation betweenthe cognitive state profile and the current cognitive state of theemployee.

For example, for a within-work-day short break (e.g., to recommend afifteen-minutes break), the deviation detecting circuit 103 comparessmall window cognitive state profiles (e.g., a size in the order of tenminutes) with windows that were anything between an hour to a few hoursback (or from previous days), until the employee was seen to have takena short break from work. If the last break was many windows back and ifthe deviation detecting circuit 103 detects a deviation greater than athreshold value between the current cognitive state and the cognitivestate profile (e.g., a deviation in the eye gaze movement smoothnessand/or facial/emotional ease), the recommending circuit 104 suggeststhat the employee to take a break.

Or, for a long-term break (e.g., to recommend a seven-day holiday fromwork), the deviation detecting circuit 103 compares large windowcognitive state profiles (e.g., five-day windows) with other similarwindows or other windows between a month or more to a year or more back,until the employee was seen to have taken a long break from work. If thelast break was a predetermined number of windows back and if thedeviation detecting circuit 103 detects a deviation greater than athreshold value between the current cognitive state and the cognitivestate profile, the recommending circuit 104 suggests the employee totake a holiday spanning for a few days, and notify the organizationalso.

It is noted that the last breaks or holiday windows are stored in theemployee action database 150 (e.g., human resource department).

FIG. 3 shows an exemplary embodiment of the system 100 facilitating therecommending of a break to an employee based on the current cognitivestate of the employee while working on a document as compared to theemployee profile stored in the employee eye gaze and facial andemotional characteristic parameters 330 (i.e., the cognitive statedatabase 130).

For example, the employee 140 can be viewing a document on their workstation. The document type identification module 301 identified thedocument read by the employee 300 and identifies the difficulty of thedocument being worked on by the employee (e.g., the documentidentification and difficulty measuring circuit 101).

Further, the eye gaze tracker 315 and the emotion and facial expressiontracker 325 track the current cognitive state of the employee (e.g., thecognitive state tracking circuit 102) and the eye gaze smoothnessprofile learner 302 and the emotion/facial expression ease profilelearner 303 (e.g., the cognitive state tracking circuit 102) learns thetypical cognitive state of the employee and stores the same.

For example, the employee profile can show that for a medium difficultylevel document the employee usually has a “blank” expression indicatingthat the employee is focused while the employee's eyes track directlywith the text of the document at a first cadence. Also, the employeeprofile can show that the employee typically experiences an exacerbatedexpression once a week when viewing this type document.

The current cognitive state monitor and deviation detection module 304(e.g., the deviation detecting circuit 103) detects a deviation betweenthe current cognitive state of the employee and the employee profile forboth a short term and a long term window.

The short break detector 305 detects the last time that the employeetook a short break as stored in the short work break recorder foremployee 350a and the short break recommender 306 (e.g., therecommending circuit 104) recommends the employee take a short breakwhen the current cognitive state of the employee deviates by apredetermined amount from the employee profile. For example, if theemployee is reading a second cadence that is slower than the firstcadence and the employee has not taken a break for a few hours, theshort break recommender 306 will recommend that the employee take abreak.

Or, the vacation detector 308 detects that the employee has not taken avacation in several months and the vacation recommender 307 can make arecommendation that the employee take an extended vacation if, forexample, the module 304 detects the employee is exhibited an exacerbatedexpression every few hours.

Thereby, the employee can return to viewing the document refreshed andthe system 100 facilitates an efficient workforce optimization by usingthe current cognitive state of the employee when working on a documentwith a cognitive state profile of the employee.

FIG. 2 shows a high level flow chart for a method 200 of breakrecommendation.

Step 201 identifies a document type (e.g., text document, softwareprogram written using a programming language, etc.) and for each pagewithin the document, measures the objective difficulty of the pageusing, for example, Natural Language Processing (NLP) properties such astext readability, semantic difficulty, presence of sarcasm and so on.For other document types (e.g., non-textual such as software-based orprogramming), a difficulty level is set from either prior policies orexternal tools/techniques.

Step 202 tracks a cognitive state (e.g., based on eye gaze, facial,and/or emotional expressions) of the employee as the employee is workingon the document.

Step 203 detects a deviation between a current cognitive state of theemployee and a stored cognitive state profile of the employee over ashort time window or a long time window. That is, Step 202 detects ifthe employee is not working efficiently and a break (or vacation) couldcause the employee to be more efficient.

Step 204 recommends to the employee (or management) that the employeetake a break (or vacation) if a deviation between the current cognitivestate of the employee and the profile of the employee is greater than apredetermined threshold.

That is, the invention can monitor the employee's eye gaze movement andfacial/emotional expressions over time, as they work with documents ondigital devices in their workplace and learn their usual eye gazesmoothness and facial/emotional ease when they read text documents, andbenchmark that with respect to the difficulty of text. This isbootstrapped over some period of time for different sliding window sizes(e.g., short such as ten-minute windows with a one-minute slide and longsuch as five-day windows with a one-day slide) to thereby create aprofile for each employee for eye gaze smoothness and facial/emotionalease with respect to document type and difficulty level.

Thus, during subsequent monitoring over a short-duration sliding window(e.g., a ten-minute window), when it is found that the employee's eyegaze smoothness and facial/emotional ease factors have fallen over thepast short period (e.g., an hour or two), a short work-break (e.g.,15-30 minutes) is recommended. Or, for a long-duration sliding window(e.g., a five-day window), similarly, a long break (e.g., a seven-dayvacation) is recommended.

Exemplary Hardware Aspects, Using a Cloud Computing Environment

It is understood in advance that although this disclosure includes adetailed description on cloud computing, implementation of the teachingsrecited herein are not limited to a cloud computing environment. Rather,embodiments of the present invention are capable of being implemented inconjunction with any other type of computing environment now known orlater developed.

Cloud computing is a model of service delivery for enabling convenient,on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computingresources (e.g. networks, network bandwidth, servers, processing,memory, storage, applications, virtual machines, and services) that canbe rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort orinteraction with a provider of the service. This cloud model may includeat least five characteristics, at least three service models, and atleast four deployment models.

Characteristics are as follows:

On-demand self-service: a cloud consumer can unilaterally provisioncomputing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, asneeded automatically without requiring human interaction with theservice's provider.

Broad network access: capabilities are available over a network andaccessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneousthin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs).

Resource pooling: the provider's computing resources are pooled to servemultiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physicaland virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according todemand. There is a sense of location independence in that the consumergenerally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of theprovided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher levelof abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter).

Rapid elasticity: capabilities can be rapidly and elasticallyprovisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out andrapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilitiesavailable for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can bepurchased in any quantity at any time.

Measured service: cloud systems automatically control and optimizeresource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level ofabstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage,processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can bemonitored, controlled, and reported providing transparency for both theprovider and consumer of the utilized service.

Service Models are as Follows:

Software as a Service (SaaS): the capability provided to the consumer isto use the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure.The applications are accessible from various client circuits through athin client interface such as a web browser (e.g., web-based e-mail).The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloudinfrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage,or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exceptionof limited user-specific application configuration settings.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): the capability provided to the consumer isto deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquiredapplications created using programming languages and tools supported bythe provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlyingcloud infrastructure including networks, servers, operating systems, orstorage, but has control over the deployed applications and possiblyapplication hosting environment configurations.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): the capability provided to theconsumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and otherfundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy andrun arbitrary software, which can include operating systems andapplications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlyingcloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage,deployed applications, and possibly limited control of select networkingcomponents (e.g., host firewalls).

Deployment Models are as Follows:

Private cloud: the cloud infrastructure is operated solely for anorganization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party andmay exist on-premises or off-premises.

Community cloud: the cloud infrastructure is shared by severalorganizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns(e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and complianceconsiderations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third partyand may exist on-premises or off-premises.

Public cloud: the cloud infrastructure is made available to the generalpublic or a large industry group and is owned by an organization sellingcloud services.

Hybrid cloud: the cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or moreclouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities butare bound together by standardized or proprietary technology thatenables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting forload-balancing between clouds).

A cloud computing environment is service oriented with a focus onstatelessness, low coupling, modularity, and semantic interoperability.At the heart of cloud computing is an infrastructure comprising anetwork of interconnected nodes.

Referring now to FIG. 4, a schematic of an example of a cloud computingnode is shown. Cloud computing node 10 is only one example of a suitablecloud computing node and is not intended to suggest any limitation as tothe scope of use or functionality of embodiments of the inventiondescribed herein. Regardless, cloud computing node 10 is capable ofbeing implemented and/or performing any of the functionality set forthhereinabove.

In cloud computing node 10, there is a computer system/server 12, whichis operational with numerous other general purpose or special purposecomputing system environments or configurations. Examples of well-knowncomputing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may besuitable for use with computer system/server 12 include, but are notlimited to, personal computer systems, server computer systems, thinclients, thick clients, hand-held or laptop circuits, multiprocessorsystems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmableconsumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputer systems, mainframecomputer systems, and distributed cloud computing environments thatinclude any of the above systems or circuits, and the like.

Computer system/server 12 may be described in the general context ofcomputer system-executable instructions, such as program modules, beingexecuted by a computer system. Generally, program modules may includeroutines, programs, objects, components, logic, data structures, and soon that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract datatypes. Computer system/server 12 may be practiced in distributed cloudcomputing environments where tasks are performed by remote processingcircuits that are linked through a communications network. In adistributed cloud computing environment, program modules may be locatedin both local and remote computer system storage media including memorystorage circuits.

As shown in FIG. 4, computer system/server 12 in cloud computing node 10is shown in the form of a general-purpose computing circuit. Thecomponents of computer system/server 12 may include, but are not limitedto, one or more processors or processing units 16, a system memory 28,and a bus 18 that couples various system components including systemmemory 28 to processor 16.

Bus 18 represents one or more of any of several types of bus structures,including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, anaccelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of avariety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation,such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus,Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, VideoElectronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and PeripheralComponent Interconnects (PCI) bus.

Computer system/server 12 typically includes a variety of computersystem readable media. Such media may be any available media that isaccessible by computer system/server 12, and it includes both volatileand non-volatile media, removable and non-removable media.

System memory 28 can include computer system readable media in the formof volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM) 30 and/or cachememory 32. Computer system/server 12 may further include otherremovable/non-removable, volatile/non-volatile computer system storagemedia. By way of example only, storage system 34 can be provided forreading from and writing to a non-removable, non-volatile magnetic media(not shown and typically called a “hard drive”). Although not shown, amagnetic disk drive for reading from and writing to a removable,non-volatile magnetic disk (e.g., a “floppy disk”), and an optical diskdrive for reading from or writing to a removable, non-volatile opticaldisk such as a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or other optical media can be provided.In such instances, each can be connected to bus 18 by one or more datamedia interfaces. As will be further depicted and described below,memory 28 may include at least one program product having a set (e.g.,at least one) of program modules that are configured to carry out thefunctions of embodiments of the invention.

Program/utility 40, having a set (at least one) of program modules 42,may be stored in memory 28 by way of example, and not limitation, aswell as an operating system, one or more application programs, otherprogram modules, and program data. Each of the operating system, one ormore application programs, other program modules, and program data orsome combination thereof, may include an implementation of a networkingenvironment. Program modules 42 generally carry out the functions and/ormethodologies of embodiments of the invention as described herein.

Computer system/server 12 may also communicate with one or more externalcircuits 14 such as a keyboard, a pointing circuit, a display 24, etc.;one or more circuits that enable a user to interact with computersystem/server 12; and/or any circuits (e.g., network card, modem, etc.)that enable computer system/server 12 to communicate with one or moreother computing circuits. Such communication can occur via Input/Output(I/O) interfaces 22. Still yet, computer system/server 12 cancommunicate with one or more networks such as a local area network(LAN), a general wide area network (WAN), and/or a public network (e.g.,the Internet) via network adapter 20. As depicted, network adapter 20communicates with the other components of computer system/server 12 viabus 18. It should be understood that although not shown, other hardwareand/or software components could be used in conjunction with computersystem/server 12. Examples, include, but are not limited to: microcode,circuit drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays,RAID systems, tape drives, and data archival storage systems, etc.

Referring now to FIG. 5, illustrative cloud computing environment 50 isdepicted. As shown, cloud computing environment 50 comprises one or morecloud computing nodes 10 with which local computing circuits used bycloud consumers, such as, for example, personal digital assistant (PDA)or cellular telephone 54A, desktop computer 54B, laptop computer 54C,and/or automobile computer system 54N may communicate. Nodes 10 maycommunicate with one another. They may be grouped (not shown) physicallyor virtually, in one or more networks, such as Private, Community,Public, or Hybrid clouds as described hereinabove, or a combinationthereof. This allows cloud computing environment 50 to offerinfrastructure, platforms and/or software as services for which a cloudconsumer does not need to maintain resources on a local computingcircuit. It is understood that the types of computing circuits 54A-Nshown in FIG. 8 are intended to be illustrative only and that computingnodes 10 and cloud computing environment 50 can communicate with anytype of computerized circuit over any type of network and/or networkaddressable connection (e.g., using a web browser).

Referring now to FIG. 6, a set of functional abstraction layers providedby cloud computing environment 50 (FIG. 5) is shown. It should beunderstood in advance that the components, layers, and functions shownin FIG. 6 are intended to be illustrative only and embodiments of theinvention are not limited thereto. As depicted, the following layers andcorresponding functions are provided:

Hardware and software layer 60 includes hardware and softwarecomponents. Examples of hardware components include: mainframes 61; RISC(Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture based servers 62;servers 63; blade servers 64; storage circuits 65; and networks andnetworking components 66. In some embodiments, software componentsinclude network application server software 67 and database software 68.

Virtualization layer 70 provides an abstraction layer from which thefollowing examples of virtual entities may be provided: virtual servers71; virtual storage 72; virtual networks 73, including virtual privatenetworks; virtual applications and operating systems 74; and virtualclients 75.

In one example, management layer 80 may provide the functions describedbelow. Resource provisioning 81 provides dynamic procurement ofcomputing resources and other resources that are utilized to performtasks within the cloud computing environment. Metering and Pricing 82provide cost tracking as resources are utilized within the cloudcomputing environment, and billing or invoicing for consumption of theseresources. In one example, these resources may comprise applicationsoftware licenses. Security provides identity verification for cloudconsumers and tasks, as well as protection for data and other resources.User portal 83 provides access to the cloud computing environment forconsumers and system administrators. Service level management 84provides cloud computing resource allocation and management such thatrequired service levels are met. Service Level Agreement (SLA) planningand fulfillment 85 provide pre-arrangement for, and procurement of,cloud computing resources for which a future requirement is anticipatedin accordance with an SLA.

Workloads layer 90 provides examples of functionality for which thecloud computing environment may be utilized. Examples of workloads andfunctions which may be provided from this layer include: mapping andnavigation 91; software development and lifecycle management 92; virtualclassroom education delivery 93; data analytics processing 94;transaction processing 95; and, more particularly relative to thepresent invention, the break recommendation system 100 described herein.

The descriptions of the various embodiments of the present inventionhave been presented for purposes of illustration, but are not intendedto be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. Manymodifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skillin the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the describedembodiments. The terminology used herein was chosen to best explain theprinciples of the embodiments, the practical application or technicalimprovement over technologies found in the marketplace, or to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the embodimentsdisclosed herein.

Further, Applicant's intent is to encompass the equivalents of all claimelements, and no amendment to any claim of the present applicationshould be construed as a disclaimer of any interest in or right to anequivalent of any element or feature of the amended claim.

What is claimed is:
 1. A break recommendation system, comprising: adocument identification and difficulty measuring circuit configured toidentify a document type of a document; a cognitive state trackingcircuit configured to track a cognitive state of a user viewing thedocument; a deviation detecting circuit configured to detect a deviationbetween a current cognitive state of the user and a past cognitive stateof the user during a predetermined amount of time for the document type;and a recommending circuit configured to recommend that the user stopviewing the document for a predetermined amount of time based on thedeviation being greater than a predetermined threshold value.
 2. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the document identification and difficultymeasuring circuit further measures a document difficulty of thedocument, and wherein the document identification and difficultymeasuring circuit measures the document difficulty for each portion ofthe document
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the cognitive statetracking circuit includes: a gaze tracking circuit configured to trackan eye gaze movement of the user over time relative to the document todetermine the cognitive state of the user; and an emotional and facialexpression tracking circuit configured to monitor a facial and emotionalexpression of the user over time relative to the document to determinethe cognitive state of the user.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein thecognitive state tracking circuit creates a user profile for the user,the user profile comprising a cognitive state measurement of the userrelative to a predetermined amount of time.
 5. The system of claim 1,wherein the cognitive state tracking circuit creates a user profile forthe user with respect to the document type for the cognitive state ofthe user over a predetermined amount of time.
 6. The system of claim 1,wherein the deviation detecting circuit detects the deviation relativeto the past cognitive state of the user within a predetermined timeframe.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein the past cognitive statecomprises a total past cognitive state as measured over a predeterminedwindow of time.
 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the cognitive state ofthe user is based on an eye gaze relative to the document.
 9. The systemof claim 1, wherein the deviation detecting circuit configured to detectthe deviation between the current cognitive state of the user and a pastcognitive state of the user on a document having a same documentdifficulty as the current document being viewed by the user.
 10. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the predetermined amount of time for the userto stop viewing the document increases based on a type of deviation fromthe past cognitive state.
 11. A break recommendation method, comprising:identifying a document type of a document; tracking a cognitive state ofemployee user viewing the document; detecting a deviation between acurrent cognitive state of the user and a past cognitive state of theuser during a predetermined amount of time for the document type; andrecommending that the user stop working on the document for apredetermined amount of time based on the deviation being greater than apredetermined threshold value.
 12. The method of claim 11, furthercomprising measuring a document difficulty of the document, wherein themeasuring measures the document difficulty for each portion of thedocument.
 13. The method of claim 11, wherein tracking tracks thecognitive state of the user by at least one of: tracking an eye gazemovement of the user over time relative to the document to determine thecognitive state of the user; and tracking a facial and emotionalexpression of the user over time relative to the document to determinethe cognitive state of the user.
 14. The method of claim 11, wherein thetracking further creates a user profile for the user, the user profilecomprising cognitive state measurements of the user relative to apredetermined amount of time.
 15. The method of claim 11, wherein thetracking creates a user profile for the user with respect to thedocument type for the cognitive state of the user over a predeterminedamount of time.
 16. A non-transitory computer-readable recording mediumrecording a break recommendation program, the program causing a computerto perform: identifying a document type of a document; tracking acognitive state of a user viewing the document; detecting a deviationbetween a current cognitive state of the user and a past cognitive stateof the user during a predetermined amount of time; and recommending thatthe user stop viewing the document for a predetermined amount of timebased on the deviation being greater than a predetermined thresholdvalue.
 17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16,further comprising measuring a document difficulty of the document,wherein the measuring measures the document difficulty for each page ofthe document.
 18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim16, wherein tracking tracks the cognitive state of the user by at leastone of: tracking an eye gaze movement of the user over time relative tothe document to determine the cognitive state of the user; and trackinga facial and emotional expression of the user over time relative to thedocument to determine the cognitive state of the user.
 19. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein thetracking further creates a user profile for the user, the user profilecomprising cognitive state measurements of the user relative to apredetermined amount of time.
 20. The non-transitory computer readablemedium of claim 16, wherein the tracking creates a user profile for theuser with respect to the document type for the cognitive state of theuser over a predetermined amount of time.